- "With all due respect, Cindy, you don’t know if they are classified since they don’t have to have markings and can still be classified. Only we can tell. And if they are classified, you are likely in trouble."
That's awfully convenient. Impossible to check if something's classified, but you can still go to jail over it.
- It's like a reverse get out of jail free card.
Do the other party have evidence against you? Declare classified documents and they go to jail instead of you.
- Was it enforceable, or was it more like those emails where it is mentioned something on the lines of:
> "if you were not the intended recipient and you received it anyway and read it but you were not meant to, you can be prosecuted"
- Let an LLM look at them ;)
- In 2006?
- If a link is submitted to HN and no one comments that you should use an LLM, is it even a real thread?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_a_tree_falls_in_a_forest_an...
- AI has always been around. America has always been at war with Eurasia.
- "One big change impacting surveillance was clear: Prior to September 11, the U.S. had what could reasonably be called a “wall” separating foreign surveillance for national security purposes done by the NSA from domestic surveillance for law enforcement purposes done by the FBI."
It turns out that the above statement is not entirely correct. I was aware of this rule at the time (early 90's), and was very surprised to find that it had been routinely violated for at least a decade. Unlike Snowden, I kept this to myself because I had signed (many) NDAs with the US Government.
- It is my understanding that the US Government set up a system, long, long ago, where the British would spy on Americans and then the British would supply the information to the NSA, thereby the NSA is not technically spying on American citizens.
Words mean nothing. They can be interpreted how ever they need to be interpreted by those in power.
- australia and america have the same agreement. these countries may be dragons but live in fear of losing their hoard (borrowing that analogy from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47963204)
- > australia and america have the same agreement
This has no basis whatsoever in Australian law.
Procuring someone else to do it on your behalf is still an offence under s 7(1) of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (Cth).
TELECOMMUNICATIONS (INTERCEPTION AND ACCESS) ACT 1979 - SECT 7
Telecommunications not to be intercepted (1) A person shall not:
a communication passing over a telecommunications system.(a) intercept; (b) authorize, suffer or permit another person to intercept; or (c) do any act or thing that will enable him or her or another person to intercept;
- People need to know about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction as well. The technique is used to shield these secret programs by laundering the information they collect through plausible evidentiary chains.
- > People need to know about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction as well.
The number of terrorists who have been caught because they were controlled by a police officer "because they ran a traffic light" (yeah, sure) is wild.
In the EU at some point after every single terrorist attack the terrorists' names were known because they had left their passports in a car they left at the scene. (yeah, sure again).
The really amazing thing is that they don't know the name of the terrorists right away: because the terrorists don't have the passport on themselves apparently. No: they all leave them in the last car they used.
Probably that, by now, terrorists see past terror attacks and think: "Oh, I'm supposed to have my passport with me, but then leave in the last vehicle I'll use before killing people".
- In France we had a case where the government tried to bring terrorist charges against someone, the problem is that the police couldn’t materially have seen what they wrote in their report, because their car was too far and the timing didn’t line up correctly. Eventually the policemen invoked confidentiality rules against their mobile phones so that no accurate probing could be made. The judge threw away the terrorist charges anyways, because the facts didn’t warrant it. Since the police knew exact facts without being there, there is a high suspicion they used illegal spying on the people and tried to launder the data.
- Parallel construction poorly executed.
- Can you elaborate on these points? I would love to read more.
- Snowden had also signed many NDAs with the government
- in 2002 I worked at an AT&T major datacenter and watched the NSA install all the black boxes in every rack, complete with a black curtain and armed guards while they did the project (St Louis). Before that it was still going on, it just wasnt so embedded like they did in 2002.
- > Unlike Snowden, I kept this to myself because I had signed (many) NDAs with the US Government.
You say this like you are proud of it. Admittedly, I cannot say what I would do in that situation as I've never been in that situation, but I'd hope I'd have the fortitude to speak up on it. Having employees/contractors doing tasks that are illegal just because they came from the higher ups is no different than soldiers refusing illegal orders. Quitting would be the least of the moral options. Speaking up would be higher up the complicated options.
- I'm not proud of it at all. The revelation was startling to me, and I was pretty unhappy about it. It was done in the name of "stopping bad people from doing bad things", but it was still illegal (at least in the white world).
Snowden had the same dilemma. He was asking the NSA lawyers about the legality of their programs, and he never got an honest answer.
Quitting would not have stopped the activity, and disclosing it would have subjected me to the same treatment that Snowden got.
(Years later, I heard an NSA program manager boasting that they would keep asking different government lawyers for an opinion on the legality of proposed programs until they got the answer they wanted. This was after Snowden's revelations.)
Pretty much everyone in CIA has a "ends justify the means" philosophy. It's easy to fall into that trap when you learn about all the devious things our enemies are doing.
Apparently EOs have been used to circumvent the constitution for quite a while.
- It's easy for others to say, "oy, you coward, you should have blown the whistle" from the comfort their web browsers. For what it's worth, I had a security clearance in a previous job (not as high as yours, I'm sure) and I understand where you are coming from. I would have likely done the same as you. Especially with my career and the ability to provide for my family on the line.
- It's probably different if you have a family, but I have quit jobs over moral implications no problem. Most people have pretty flimsy morals and will do anything to keep the money rolling in.
- How do you know how many people would quit? Even if 99% of the US would refuse to work for the NSA, the last 1% would be plenty for the job.
- Stopping the action is not the only reason to quit a job you deeply disapprove of. There's a related anecdote in the book Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. From my memory: a man working for the US embassy in Japan was unhappy and doing psychotherapy. The therapist was trying to see if his issues with his boss had something to do with his relationship to authority, digging into his relationship to his father, etc. Turns out, he was just in deep disagreement with the policies he had to enforce, and quitting solved the issue.
Quitting a job you think is harmful (or even maybe meaningless) can be good for yourself, in addition to the morality question.
- Most people have no safety net and if the money stops rolling in their life is effectively ruined for several years
- Most people in the world? Potentially, though I doubt the "life ruined for years" part holds for >50%.
Most people on HN? Definite no. Most people on HN who work in roles where they're exposed to such mass surveillance or other evil at scale (like Meta)? Absolutely not.
- You'd be amazed at the number of people that live pay check to pay check. Even on here, I'd guess the number is higher than you'd expect. There are plenty of people in tech that do not live in SV or work for a FAANG. You're failing victim to the echo chamber if you think everyone here is a well paid bit banger
- > You'd be amazed at the number of people that live pay check to pay check. Even on here, I'd guess the number is higher than you'd expect.
Well you don't have to live anywhere near paycheck to paycheck to be intimidated. If you're stonewalled from employment, you're in trouble unless you are so fabulously wealthy that you can afford to never work again.
- - There are people with $1M+ salaries who live pay check to pay check. This is a choice. A lot of HNers fall under this category.
- A lot of people who are actually poor and live pay check to pay check aren't ruined for years if they lose their job. Because the nature of their work and lack of career usually means they're unstable and replaceable "commodity" jobs in the first place.
- Almost everyone who is in a position to be exposed to evil at scale as a tech worker, is among the top 5% earners in the world. I'm being very conservative there, it's likely top 1%.
- Top 5% earnings only buffer you against job loss if you don't have top 5% expenditures. The hedonic treadmill is real.
- I've seen [alleged] homeless people post on here before. Do you really need more than an interest in tech (and an internet connection) to read/post here?
- I always keep coming back to the Nixon years when basic income was first approved in the senate by the republicans and stopped in the house by democrats.
What a different world we'd be living in, if the (back then, at least supposedly) greatest democracy would have shown the way to a universal safety net.
How fucking sad that we ended in a world where the finders of flaws or zerodays are being suppressed and prosecuted, instead of allowing them to make the world a better place.
A handful of narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths now hold almost all power with these structures.
At least now the pretense of democracy is dropped.
- > It's probably different if you have a family
It truly is. I can’t emphasize this enough.
- The mistake wasn't in not blowing the whistle but it was taking a job with this kind of organization in the first place.
Yeah the solution is to not put yourself into a position where you need to make these choices. The fuel for the fire that are organizations like the CIA are people who don't have moral qualms or who have flexible ones.
The less people who work for these organizations the better.
- I never worked directly for them. I was a contractor.
If all the people of conscience quit, they are left with a workforce without a conscience, which I guess is pretty much what they have now, at least in certain areas.
- Yes that frees the people with a conscience to work on endeavours that challenge these corrupt institutions.
That’s a good thing.
It isn’t really a radical or counterintuitive thing to say ‘don’t do evil work for evil people.’
People who give mealy mouth excuses like ‘I was just following orders’ or ‘I was just a contractor’ are part of the problem.
- > Yes that frees the people with a conscience to work on endeavours that challenge these corrupt institutions.
That... Isn't really how that works in the real world, though.
What happens when people with conscience leave legitimate institutions is that they lose legitimacy. Now you have a legitimate institution with power and no conscience, and a myriad of non-legitimate institutions with little power and some conscience.
This is a strictly worse situation to be in.
- They may not all simply be replaced, limiting what can be done without them. https://www.americanbar.org/advocacy/governmental_legislativ...
- > That... Isn't really how that works in the real world, though.
It has in the past.
What changed?
- That sounds great in theory, but how did it work out in practice?
It's been thirteen years since Snowden, and twenty years since Mark Klein, and there have been no real reforms in the system, people continue to work for them, and with them and it's only gotten worse.
The course of action that you suggest is exactly what has lead America into a Mad King scenario with big tech oligarchs and theocratic running the show with China on the cusp of becoming the world hegemon.
People keep chasing that carrot, keep working for the man and the end result is that they to chase that carrot a little bit harder, burning them out until the man replaces them with someone new just as eager to chase that carrot a little harder.
And all along the way the noose around all of us tightens a little bit more the temperature outside gets a little bit hotter and America's grip on the world weakens.
Where does this go?
- I don't know, I think the Left's attitude of making civil institutions socially radioactive has contributed more to the decay than people burning out from within.
You speak as if "the man" is by definition "on the wrong side" (i.e. lacking conscience), but there is no "man", just a body of civil servants trying to do what they think is right, for varying definitions of right. After all, isn't that what folks were out protesting during the DOGE days, when whole departments were eliminated?
Your argument assumes its conclusion, and thus is circular.
I agree with the issue of folks trying their best and burning out--but this is why it's important that the people replacing them be just as hungry to do the right thing, if not more so.
However, it's been a tactic in politics recently to call entire departments corrupt, and insinuate that anyone who wants to work for them are likewise so.
But I don't understand the logic of doing this. If, for example, you think "all cops are bastards"... Wouldn't you want more people who think like you to become cops, instead of fewer? Wouldn't you rather run into your best friend in a cop's uniform, than someone you don't know? Why, then, would you vilify the entire organization, and make it clear you could never stand shoulder to shoulder with anyone who would dare want to be a police officer?
Wouldn't that make it less likely that someone who thinks the same as you would consider joining?
And yet the need for police persists; thus by vilifying them, your end up increasing the concentration of people who don't think like you. This seems, like my statement above, a strictly worse situation, and seems to be exactly what has played out in many jurisdictions!
You can apply the same line of thinking to all parts of the government, with similar results. In fact, I'll go further: I think this dynamic better explains the rotting of our institutions than yours does.
We should be encouraging people who think like us to work in the government, not discouraging them with pointless fatalism.
- You're assuming that I subscribe to the left-right paradigm and that I am an American but that is not the case.
The way I see it the modern American left-right paradigm that you identify with is the problem. The little gotchas that you describe with people who complained about DOGE or ACAB are the problem.
Modern America itself is the problem. Modern Americans lack the mental capacity to reason about this.
I don't mean that as an insult, I mean that Americans for generations now are conditioned to not be able to reason about America not being the dominant player in the world, they can't process a scenario where America falls, and due to the past ten+ years of hyper-partisan political discourse and the corrosive effects that it has on their brains they lack the ability to understand these things when people talk about them.
Many Americans still believe that their country can be saved -- that it merely requires a reconfiguration of the existing pieces with some hardworking, dedicated people in the right positions to put things back in order. I'm sure there were people who believed the same in the USSR even in the final days before it fell apart but that didn't turn out to be the case.
You can put as many friendly people as you can find in the police force, and the same with the NSA and CIA, but it would be just as futile as doing the same with the Stasi, the KGB or the GRU.
The time to fix this was twenty years ago. George Bush and Dick Cheney should have spent the last twenty years in prison. Same with the heads of the NSA and CIA and thousands of other bureaucrats, the oligarchs who caused the 2008 financial crisis.
It didn't happen and it won't happen for this bunch of pedophile war criminals.
Authoritarians and theocrats have taken over.
America is falling down and it isn't going to get back up. I don't want that to be the case but it just is.
- I think there might have been some other reasons Trump got elected.
Which do you think works better--protesting/suing the people making the decision? Or being the person making the decision? It's much harder to change the course of law from the outside, without access to power. The problem is that power corrupts.
Either works if enough people care enough. Maybe instead of blaming the messengers for not putting their own careers on the line, you should blame all the people who just didn't care at all?
- I'm not the guy you responded to, but I just wanted to say I think you misunderstood him. He wasn't prescribing a solution. He was describing a situation. If good people leave all institutions because of corruption, then only corrupt people will be left. There will most likely always be some corruption. We need to keep corruption and violations of rights from getting out of control because nobody wants to live through a war to restore order.
The US has been leaning toward the worse for years. I think it can be traced back to the JFK assassination or earlier. The Church Committee found out a lot and ultimately changed very little. We certainly have a theocratic influence but I think the Christians are played off the leftists masterfully to subvert the nation. If people weren't at each other's throats over random issues, they might start to think about where all the tax money goes.
It is pure arrogance to think that the US can essentially rule the world forever. Being in this position and having the reserve currency is why we seem superficially rich as all the production goes abroad. Instead of factory jobs, kids get to drive for DoorDash and stuff like that. If this trend is not reversed soon, we won't produce enough of anything to defend the country. We may already be in that position IMO.
Where does it go? I think we are in for a rude awakening. We might see severe economic turbulence and war, hopefully followed by peace and preservation of our individual and national sovereignty. I would count anything past this as a bonus.
- [dead]
- What about you, do you work for the EFF? If not, I'll give you an out - donate just $100. (I just did.) As a bonus you can even get the book this article is from.
- Or just like, don't work for the government. simple as. Some people have morals, some people want money. It's OK. We get it, AI startup engineer hell bent on destroying thought work. We get it rastifarian bomb builder for the US navy. we get it All American who works for the chinese virualogy lab. it's just work its not your life. just do whatever and make money.
- Quitting would just be the first step in "I do not want to participate in this". Whistle blowing is much more complicated in that you are hoping to not just not be participating but maybe stopping it altogether. Being young and single compared to being older with dependents would absolutely make that decision harder. Violating secrecy laws to disclose illegal activity seems like something that should have a caveat to allow, but of course they don't.
- Actually they do. The law states that not only is it illegal to classify stuff to hide illegal activity, things classified that way are not actually classified. The whistleblower before Manning was very careful about what they leaked, and apparently went through the right chains. He was found guilty of misusing government property and given a slap on the wrist... And blackballed from working anywhere they had reach. But the law itself upheld that what he leaked was not classified.
- This is a moral psychological quandary: quit and hope everyone shares your moral compass. (hint: they don’t).
Or work to pressure change internally, and occupy space that might have gone to a more morally flexible person if it was made vacant; but while doing so engage in supporting immoral behaviour.
- Neither work without organizing. You cannot apply any meaningful pressure from the inside as an individual worker. You also do not need to work someplace to organize it.
- If you work outside of the organization and compel someone to act on your behalf, you will be charged with that. It's how journalists have been tripped up in the past. If someone leaks to a journo, the journo is not part of the leak. If the journo asks someone to get data to be leaked to them, they've overstepped and get into trouble. That's something to not be forgotten.
From the inside, talking to coworkers definitely seems risky. If they are not like minded, they could report you. It'd have been better to just have quit at that point.
Because of all of that, "ethical" leaking really does seem like the only option left. It's then a matter of can the leaker live with the consequences.
- Every administration effectively creates their own interpretation of what is permissible in this regard. The rules of engagement as it were that are set down by each administration vary widely. Nonetheless, it has effectively become a one-way ratchet.
- I would push back against the idea that intelligence agency behavior changes administration to administration. Looking through history, it's the intelligence agencies which have superior continuity of leadership. Which suggests things about who's directing who.
- Bureaucracy in general exhibits that kind of hysteresis. It is like a running average of who has been in charged mixed with a big dose of the culture that people who choose that sort of career create. Ironically, that inertia is considered by political scientists to be a safeguard for democracy.
- It hits different when the bureaucracy's job is to collect and exploit secrets, and act in the shadows.
- It also “hits different” when you’re the group paying for the bureaucracy.
- Happens throughout society not just Govt.
Here's the Safety Ladder that exploits Fears to justify anything - Why are you doing X?
We are doing it for your safety.
We are doing it for the safety of your family.
We are doing it to keep the org and thousands of jobs afloat.
We are doing it to save the country
Reducing peoples fears, not increasing them is the only path to prevent the entire chimp troupe quickly climbing that ladder any time something unpredictable happens.
- > Snowden had the same dilemma. He was asking the NSA lawyers about the legality of their programs, and he never got an honest answer.
That’s why he fled to China and then to Russia, as any true patriot with the interests of the American people at heart would do.
- Genuinely curious: what would you have had him do instead?
- Holy derp.
- Bringing this poorly-informed comment back in order to ask:
on which Murdoch-owned garbage network did you hear that?
“Hong Kong” is not “China”, and if it subjectively is now, was less so at the time.
He was aiming for Ecuador, or similar.
It’s really mostly a matter of politics (and a bit of luck) that he didn’t get scooped up in HK for one intent or another.
https://www.reuters.com/article/world/china-persuaded-snowde...
- The "ends justify the means" mentality in various government security agencies is very, very real.
- Not just for government security agencies, and not just in USA. Police generally fall for it as well.
- well people want to finish their work and go home, that's why
I know HNers don't like "surveillance everywhere", but...
if you're some law enforcement, every chance to get info means hours/days saved on your work... so you reach for the "easy-way": if you can get comms of a drug gang, you can identify who belongs to that gang (instead of risking their own life by actually 'joining' the gang)
But... some do cross their lines (eg watching comms of their ex, getting paid by political actors to listen over opponents, etc)
it's not like law enforcements are 100% bad guys, but things are "complicated"
- It's mainly a problem of consequences and accountability. The people who suffer unjustly from unlawful surveillance and overreach are usually unable to do anything about it, and they are assumed to be criminals anyways so nobody cares. Punishments for violating the law are nearly nonexistent for "law enforcement", so a culture of impunity is formed that cannot be easily fixed. Anybody trying to enforce the rules would run into both corrupt and noncorrupt noncompliance, just like trying to get fast food workers to follow health and safety guidelines. It's probably impossible to reform and only a wholesale teardown and replacement without keeping anyone contaminated by the existing culture has a chance.
- It is quite different, as an employee you can be convicted for what you were ordered to do by your employer.
If you do an illegal thing while following government orders you can only be convicted if your country loses a war.
- That is an unfair insinuation - ‘that he sounds proud of it’. There are many reasons one stays quiet - like you are sole provider for a family, its beem going on for a while that you ignore/doubt its seriousness etc.
- That's just the way the "Unlike Snowden" part read to me. Had you read further down the thread, you'd see I had already stipulated the family part before you made your comment.
- The consequences for speaking out can be very, very real, and utterly catastrophic. A good friend tried to blow the whistle on something the Cameron government was doing in the U.K., involving the judiciary, and got steamrolled for his efforts. There isn’t a whisper of the topic itself in the public domain, but his “crimes” were so bad that Cameron himself did a press conference to condemn him. His wife couldn’t take it, as these were people who’d spent their lives as loyal subjects of the system, suddenly cast out and crushed underfoot, killed herself. His kids fled the country.
So - sure - it’s the “right thing to do” to speak out, but when dealing with government you have to do it with the foreknowledge that this may have mortal (or worse) consequences for you and your family.
Profoundly formative experience for me, witnessing it all.
- My little piece... it seems like we're litigating your past below, which doesn't seem to be helpful. What's done is done; what is each of us going to do, now?
- Unrelated but genuine question: When did it become vogue to use the word "litigate" in a casual context like you just did, outside of any legal proceedings or the like? Why prefer it over, for example, "debate"?
(I first observed it watching a broadcast of JD Vance, but have encountered others effect the same usage since then).
- Huh, good question. It's actually a very, very old use – the OED gives examples going all the way back to 1740, apparently (see entry 2b. below.)
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/litigate_v?tab=meaning_and_us...
- You don't sign NDAs with the government, you sign a lifetime obligation [1] where the penalty is treason. I doubt you did or saw any such things.
1. https://media.defense.gov/2021/Oct/18/2002875198/-1/-1/0/NSA...
- I don't feel any compelling need to convince you.
During my career I signed dozens of NDAs. They were all either umbrella or caveat specific. All of them cited Title 18 referencing punishments (including death) for violations of the NDA, and all of them were related to either Title 10 or Title 50 activities.
Without being too specific, what I observed was the use of NSA assets to surveil grow operations within the US. It was explained to me that it began with Ronald Reagan's War On Drugs.
I've seen much worse since then while supporting Waived / Unacknowledged programs. Present classification requirements dictate that those be reviewed for declassification after 40 years, but they will never see the light of day because all documentation is destroyed at the end of the program and not archived anywhere.
- This got me wondering how often a person in your position sticks all their contemporaneous notes in a place where the inheritors of their estate would find them. But perhaps encrypted and somehow time-locked to ensure the forty-year minimum standard is kept. Since obviously national security is going to be the number one, but after that the law’s the law.
Oh maybe people assign law firms to disclose this stuff but that’s a decently sized tax to pay when you’ve done nothing wrong.
Hey thanks for sharing what you could
- Actually security clearances do include an NDA. When I signed mine it contained an amusing clause, something to the effect of you will not share classified information until 70 years have passed or you die, whichever is _later_.
- Could the person who drafted that have been contemplating something like a Dead Man's Switch? Even if so, not sure how it would have much teeth in terms of consequences after you're dead.
Or some weird scenario where an individual technically dies but is then brought back to life?
Or maybe they secretly recruit zombies and only drafted one set of employment contracts.
- So if you live past 70, you could write classified information into your will?
- Presumably yes (though not past 70, unless you signed at birth), or by using a dead man's switch.
- The existance and general operation of no such agency and echalon were common knowledge. I remember reading about them in Tom Clancy novels. Fantasy, but also widely understood reality. One doesnt need to have a clearance to count satalite dishes at like pine gap and realize what is happening.
- If you are not a direct government employee you maybe sign an NDA.
- [flagged]
- Shameless plug (as a board member): If you are interested in the book that this is from, a great way to pick it up is on the EFF website, where your purchase helps EFF keep up the fight for privacy. https://www.eff.org/Privacys-Defender
- Clicked on your site in your bio
Just the definition of cool for a nerd like me, you all are.“This is a blog about how culture is made, continuously updated since 1999 for free, with no ads or trackers.”Anyone who is more employed than me, highly recommend finding a way to support the EFF! They have proven themselves to be a firewall between the way we want to live our lives online and countless antisocial attempts to make like seven people richer, etc..
- Thanks for your work.
- I suppose this is as good a place as any to dump this. In 2002, I was hosting a 1U server in downtown Los Angeles. No cages, minimal security, pretty sure I just walked in.
Crash carts sat unattended, usually a screen filled with porn and a cable running on the floor to the nearest tap. I got the feeling that many of the techs were hosting porn sites as a side gig.
On my second visit, in plain sight, was new construction. A corner of the room with what looked like four inch fiber bundles going in and out. One dusty, one fresh. Taped dry-wall, unpainted. If the door wasn't so fancy you'd never look twice.
Is that...? Dude grimaced and nodded.
- >fiber bundles going in and out
I worked data centers for my IBEW apprenticeships — during Snowden revelations — and it was definitely "confusing" knowing that all the technology they said didn't exist existed. "Black, LLC" didn't officially exist/make connections among our clientele.
Unless you were actively vandalizing our public infrastructure, I never questioned anybody's presence/activities on our datafloors.
Probably security is tons better now, but the social entries are still most-commonable.
- Is that… what?? Is this technical innuendo?
- I assume the implication was an intercept facility.
- I think it was 600 W 7 St. A quick Google of NSA tap plus that address turns up serious press reports from 7 or 8 years ago. It was clearly put up in a hurry. But I can't imagine I was the only one who noticed. I was just some dumbass serving a music site and it was totally obvious something was up.
- This is a great behind-the-scenes look at the NSA-Hepting case.
Can't wait to read Cohn's book.
Also RIP Mark Klein. A true American hero who never tried to turn his whistle-blowing into becoming a celebrity.
- Sounds like he lived to be 80 and died recently of cancer.
That's a better outcome than I'd feared.
- Beware, this is a book excerpt rather than a standalone blog post, so it ends on a cliffhanger. Still a fun read.
- Hopefully, this comes as no more of a spoiler than revealing the Titanic sinks at the end of the movie... but, everything Mark Klein revealed in 2006 (and that Snowden revealed in 2014) is still happening daily - along with much, much worse. And just this week congress is acting to further extend the secret extra-expanded FISA powers we don't even know about.
U.S. Senator Ron Wyden is on the Senate Intelligence Committee and obviously can't reveal the details but has been clear it's gotten very, very bad (starting from 'worse than Snowden'). And Wyden doesn't strike me as the excitable type prone to exaggeration. So... I've concluded I should imagine the worst possible surveillance abuses and assume it's even worse.
- its been going on for decades... I don't know if there is an answer to this problem
- Encrypt everything, all the time, everywhere, use quantum hardened encryption wherever possible.
- This does not work if your communication enpoint is the same as your encryption endpoint.
Or you don't control your key material.
Or your tech supply chain.
Or leave your device unattended.
Or aren't susceptible to the same "five dollar wrench" attacks used by certain in-person Bitcoin wallet thievestgat are also available to state actors.
I could go on...
- Ron Wyden is my favorite senator and a great example of why Oregon is such a based/amazing state.
- There's more info about the outcome in [1]. Long story short, the US government passed a law (whilst this case was being litigated) that let AT&T off the hook.
- While I was upset to hear how that ended, it's also unfair to expect a company to refuse when the government shows up with guns, takes over a part of your offices, and tells you to stay out of their way and never tell anyone what they are doing or else you'll be killed or sent to a secret torture prison for the rest of your life.
That's not a situation that's supposed to happen in a free country, but here we are. If you're handed a gag order by the federal government and can't even tell your lawyers about what happened what options does a company have? How many CEOs and low level employees should we expect to volunteer to have their lives destroyed by refusing to cooperate with the government's illegal surveillance schemes?
At&t may not have been coerced quite that aggressively, but these kinds of problems need to be addressed by people other than the private companies who are themselves victims of government oppression. Having said that, not every company is a totally unwilling participant either. There are companies who are happy to make a lot of money by selling our private data to the government. ISPs and phone companies even bill police departments for things like wiretaps and access to online portals where they can collect customer's data. State surveillance (legal or otherwise) shouldn't be allowed to become a revenue stream for private corporations. In fact it should be costly.
Considering the massively disproportionate amount of influence corporations have over our government (mostly as a result of their own bribes) it's tempting to want to make compliance so costly to companies that they're compelled to try to use some of that influence to stop or limit domestic surveillance by the state, but honestly I doubt that even they have enough power to stop it. Snowden showed us that even congress doesn't have the power to regulate these agencies. The head of the NSA, under oath, lied right to their faces by denying that their illegal wiretapping scheme even existed. You can't regulate something you aren't allowed to know exists. He also faced zero consequences for those lies which tells us that he's basically untouchable.
Obama was elected on campaign promises that he would end the NSA's domestic surveillance programs. Obama was an expert on constitutional law and taught courses on it at the University of Chicago. He spoke out passionately about how unconstitutional and dangerous such programs were. After he was elected his stance quickly changed. He not only started publicly praising the NSA, he actually expanded their surveillance powers. Maybe the NSA showed him a bunch of top secret evidence that scared him enough to make him willing to accept the dangers of their surveillance despite knowing the risks and unconstitutionality. Maybe the NSA strong-armed him. Either way, not even the US president had the power to stop the NSA. It's pretty unreasonable to expect that AT&T would.
- There's a reason J. Edgar Hoover held power for 48 years.
Kennedy wanted to "break the CIA into a thousand pieces"[1] and had a trusted brother as Attorney General to help with the task. And we learn 70 years later that Oswald was a CIA asset[2]. It's enough for even a President to sit up and take notice.
1: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/2025-03/2025-0...
2: https://www.newsweek.com/new-documents-shed-light-cias-conne...
- I've put that detail in the title above - perhaps it will help nudge the thread ontopicward.
- Instances like this is a powerful statement that truly free and democratic governance is not sustainable in the long run with technological advancements.
We are basically trading marginal comforts from new technology in the short run for political freedom in the long run and the latency is decreasing.
The difference is overt governance of this nature is vilified and amplified in the media and the covert governance is insulated and critics marginalized.
- They're sustainable but require major cultural revolution to keep up.
- Didn't see it in the actual text of the article, but as a caption of one of the images. The actual book this is excerpted from is Privacy's Defender by Cindy Cohn https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262051248/privacys-defender/
- arpwatch running on an edge router of mine tells me that there's a host with a DoD-registered IP address connected to my (major US) ISP network segment, which I know for a fact contains both business and residential subscribers. I port scanned it when I first discovered it just to say 'hello', and I have little doubt that a dragnet surveillance apparatus lives on the other side of that firewall.
Governments have utilized clandestine wiretaps for as long as there have been wires. Bad guys and the children and all that. Not to mention, what an advantage that people think you're kooky when you talk openly about this stuff!
- A long-forgotten machine on a DoD network sounds like the kind of host that could serve for idle scanning or any other technique using a forged source address and a predictable dummy host; I imagine that arpwatch takes a view of network security focused on classifying frames and less on connection behavior.
- The DoD also just does an incredible amount of stuff. It is entirely possible that there's just a satellite office for this or that nearby.
- Long tentacles indeed.
- I think Perfect Forward Secrecy has a great deal to do with how things have turned out. In the days of Room 641A, copying and diverting fiber traffic to somewhere like Utah even before it could be read, would have conferred an advantage if it was encrypted (and important enough for other attacks like black bag jobs on servers). PFS has turned ephemeral encryption into the garbage it deserves to be.
- This was an amazing read for me, so much so I bought the book and am enjoying reading it. It's quite an interesting read and I'm learning quite a bit more than I knew about the mission EFF stands for.
- This is literally old news - contemporaneous with Snowden, Prism, etc. in early 2000s. Go read about the current Section 702 / FISA authorization renewal battle about which Senator Wyden recently said:
Some articles:“I strongly believe that this matter can and should be declassified and that Congress needs to debate it openly before Section 702 is reauthorized,” Wyden said in a Senate floor speech last month. “In fact, when it is eventually declassified, the American people will be stunned that it took so long and that Congress has been debating this authority with insufficient information.”https://time.com/article/2026/04/27/fisa-fbi-spying-surveill...
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/04/trump-congress-...
- Well, this report to EFF happened in Jan 2006, and the Snowden/Prism leak happened in 2013, so at the time, it was in fact not "old news". I don't think Prism was even in operation until 2007.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowden_disclosures
- ECHELON pre-dates Prism by several decades
- Thank you for the links!
It’s good to understand the new. Also of course good to understand where we came from, imagine a number of users are hearing about PRISM for the first time with this post.
- The problem is that modern Americans politicize everything.
There was a short period at the end of the Bush years when this was a big deal, but as soon as the gaslighting was coming from both political teams, it became a non-issue politically.
> President Obama defended the U.S. government's surveillance programs, telling NBC's Jay Leno on Tuesday that: "There is no spying on Americans."
"We don't have a domestic spying program," Obama said on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. "What we do have is some mechanisms that can track a phone number or an email address that is connected to a terrorist attack. ... That information is useful."
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/08/06/209692380...
- Everything _is_ political, as the other comment says. The problem is that no one talks about "governance", they just talk about "politics", which is not the same thing. Governance is the question of what good government should look like. Politics is just about accumulating power.
- that is a good way of looking at it. I wonder though, if power is a bad thing in and of itself. I know that there will always be power. I would rather have people with good intentions have it then the opposite. Not sure how that will happen. I think when more good people get involved I guess.
- Nope. Power corrupts. Or as Frank Herbert said it, power attracts the corruptible. The solution is to not give anyone that much power over you!
- I'm afraid that caring about an issue (instead of caring about whatever stance your favorite political team happens to be taking at this moment) has become much less common.
When both parties threw their weight behind the "nobody is spying on Americans" lie, we went from only the hyperpartisan fans of the right wing making excuses for spying on Americans to the hyperpartisan fans of both parties doing so.
- That's the what's required to make propaganda and manipulation work the best.
- > The problem is that modern Americans politicize everything.
Everything is political. Electric cars, crude oil, rocket launches, rare earth metals, cargo transportation, public transportation, housing, taxation, data, compute... which of those aren't political?
The problem is Americans believing obvious lies like "Privacy is a human right" and "Don't be evil" and then blaming the government instead of themselves.
- Ironically from the perspective of 2026, the actual "conservative" conservatives were the key opponents. The "total information awareness" and national ID efforts were really killed by the conservatives in congress. The "neocons" and moderate/conservative democrats were mostly fine with both.
- Even if you're in favour of surveillance, why does the surveillance also need to be secret?
- The article ends with "we were all a little worried." Is this where it's supposed to end? Feels incomplete. I'm hooked anyway.
- it's a book excerpt
- Wowwww I didn't know what Room 641A meant, but when I clicked on the link and saw the image of the door to the server closet it brought it all back. Funny how people remember things.
- One of the few good outcomes: Mark Klein never faced a lawsuit or criminal charges from the government, AT&T or the justice system in general for his disclosure.
- "Privacy's Defender" eh? Rather grandiose title considering that defense has been an abject historical failure.
(Not to suggest the EFF has not waged a valiant effort regardless.)
- Entire generations of people who were never alive to remember a world where their every movement and utterance was not being tracked by the advertising/surveillance industrial complex.
It's just considered normal now. The west is very sick.
- You spelled world wrong. China has their social credit, EU has their cameras, America has Palantir, Starlink has internet everywhere, 5G can be used as radar, age verification is being deployed globally, ect... Babylon reborn.
Edit: UK not EU
- UK: hold my beer...
- I think GP meant to s/EU/UK/, as in "UK has their cameras", because "EU has their cameras" doesn't make much sense to me as EU citizen...
- Yep, got my wires crossed, thanks for the correction.
- Are we pretending this isn't a global phenomenon?
- Of course all governments want to control every move and thought of their citizens. It makes governing easier. We expect that in autocracies.
I don't know about The West as a bloc, but at least the USA was supposed to have respect for the basic individualistic privacy and freedom of the average citizen. We've allowed that to largely evaporate. The differences between the US and something like the PRC are rapidly eroding.
Don't get me wrong, the US is still an order of magnitude more free but you can see a future where the trend lines are converging.
- > Of course all governments want to control every move and thought of their citizens. It makes governing easier. We expect that in autocracies.
Are you implying that all governments are autocracies? Rather pessimistic view, in my opinion.
- All governments are autocracies in the same way that all directions are downhill if you are a marble.
- In many ways the west is copying what the East and the Middle East are doing. It’s quite concerning that democratic governments and their electorate are going with it, but to be “fair” this seems to be a somewhat orchestrated global phenomenon. Of course it’s not good.
- Overseas, cash is king. In Canada, and also in San Francisco, you can only tap your credit card because cash carries COVID [0].
[0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/cash-coronavirus-questions-an...
- The US adopted credit cards before the rest of the world, so we ended up with a worse network (essentially ossified at v1 when later adopters got v2 or v3).
Corona paranoia incentivized upgraded to tap-to-pay, but it was already prevalent in other parts of the world. It was more ubiquitous in Singapore in 2019 than it is in the US even now.
- If a shop won't accept cash, I just leave.
- You weren't transacting at all in Toronto during COVID then.
This is the endgame of surveillance capitalism: submission, or opting out. Few can, or care enough to, do the latter.
- I'm as concerned about the surveillance state as anyone but let's keep our history constrained by fact. I live in Toronto too and it was still true that for many, many places cash was fine. Cash discounts are super common in various parts of the city and this was still true during COVID.
- > let's keep our history constrained by fact. I live in Toronto too
This is hilarious. Toronto has no respect for facts, it has shown it will just fabricate histories out of whole cloth.
Nevertheless I'm tired of people citing anecdata and personal experience when upthread I have linked to a CBC article discussing a Bank of Canada report "arguing that cash-based transactions have plummeted from 54 per cent in 2009 to 10 per cent as of 2021."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/canada-sleepwalking-in...
- > You weren't transacting at all in Toronto during COVID then.
There's always someone will to take cash. It's still king, despite the naysayers.
- >you can only tap your credit card because cash carries COVID [0]
maybe during peak covid? but certainly not now. this comment is either being intentionally disingenuous or just parroting a random article from an extraordinary (and no longer applicable) time of our lives and presenting it as if its still the current status quo.
i am in canada for weeks at a time multiple times per year, and i have family that live in BC, AB, and ON.
cash is my primary form of payment and not once have i been turned down using cash on any of my visits. not once has family complained about being unable to use cash (several of the older of them, like me, primarily use cash).
- Congratulations, you are the 1 in 10. This is why we don't use anecdata.
> Even a report commissioned by the Bank of Canada suggests it's time to protect access to money.
> That report, titled "Social policy implications for a less-cash society," recommends legislative action, arguing that cash-based transactions have plummeted from 54 per cent in 2009 to 10 per cent as of 2021.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/canada-sleepwalking-in...
- doesn't matter what the proportion is.
the fact is i can still use cash, despite your very bold claim otherwise.
whats your goal with the misinformation, anyways?
- [flagged]
- >Why don't you just misgender me next while you're making assumptions?
what...?
>until people derailed it
by people, do you mean you? you are the one that brought up "overseas" vs. canada/san fran and made the false claim that you cant use cash in canada.
- The purpose was to illustrate how even basic commerce is going to be monitored to a much greater degree in highly electronic socities like those in North America. Go ask the fucking corner store in the deep Philippine provinces, where the power goes out twice a month, to bring out the credit card machine - no, almost all transactions will be done in cash, whereas only 10% will be in Canada. Let's just assume one nine, even - 90% of your business conducted in private overseas in a cash-based society, vs. 90% of your business being surveilled by the government and private industry in North America.
The claim is not false. Did you read the Bank of Canada report or the CBC article, with actual stats and numbers in aggregate, or are you going to keep asserting your anecdata and personal experience?
- >Did you read the Bank of Canada report or the CBC article, with actual stats, or are you going to keep asserting your anecdata and personal experience?
you said that i cannot use cash in canada. full stop.
if you wanted to talk about the proportion of cash use, which is a point i wholly agree with, you should have said that in your first comment instead of saying that you cant use cash at all (and linking it to covid?).
- [flagged]
- >Just go on and assume my race is Italian or Roman or something next.
every time you can't refute something, you bring in gender or race.
its one of the strangest things ive seen.
- > every time you can't refute something, you bring in gender or race.
I learned from the highly effective rhetoric of the 2010s.
- Trolls get bored sometimes.
- curious which overseas country that doesn't fall under the 'west' has cash as king
- Credit cards are more convenient.
1. Double tap power button on a phone you are already holding
2. Tap the reader
Versus
1. Find an ATM
2. Take your wallet out of your pocket
3. Take your card out of your wallet
4. Spend a minute withdrawing cash from the ATM
5. Put the cash in your wallet
6. Put your wallet in your pants
7. Go to the actual place you want to spend money
8. Take your wallet out of your pocket
9. Take cash out of your wallet
10. Hand it over
11. Wait to receive change
12. Put the change in your wallet
13. Put your wallet in your pocket
If you want cash to make a resurgence you need to figure out how we can make a digital version of it.
When War Drums Roll, Hunter S. Thompson, https://www.espn.com/page2/s/thompson/010918.htmlThat wisdom will not be much comfort to babies born last week. The first news they get in this world will be News subjected to Military Censorship. That is a given in wartime, along with massive campaigns of deliberately-planted "Dis-information." That is routine behavior in Wartime -- for all countries and all combatants -- and it makes life difficult for people who value real news.
- See also perhaps:
- So much of surveillance should be blatantly illegal/unconstitutional, but I really don't understand how there can be such a thing as documents that are illegal to possess.
- To think a group of people are not going to expend effort in learning about their adversaries is just naive at best. At some point, those adversaries are going to infiltrate your people. The only way to attempt to monitor them would mean you now have the means to monitor your own people.
I'm not saying I'm for this, but just acknowledging that it is only inevitable. You can hope for moral people, but that's farcical.
- The HN headline really should use the title of the article. Almost no one knows what room 641F means.
- Who runs this backbone now? CloudFlare?
- Downvoted for mentioning the most likely candidate for MITM at scale tells you all you need to know about HN’s understanding of government surveillance.
- Gripping!
Adding this to my tsundoku
- [dead]
- Kevin Mitnick also discovered this.. ages ago.
- Source?
- Also it's important to know that it was a private company 'technically' doing it.
Like they still do (just buy the data instead of getting warrants for them.)
Apparently, if the government did this directly that would be a breach of our constitutional rights and blah blah blah blah. But if a private company does it's fine (there's probably something in the terms of service or license agreement waiving your rights) this and then they go buy that data from the private company and that's apparently okay.
- Hackers 2: operation takedown is based on a true story.
https://www.cybereason.com/blog/malicious-life-podcast-kevin...
> his brother introduced him to a hacker named Eric Heinz, who told him about a mysterious piece of equipment he came across while breaking into Pacific Bell: SAS, a testing system that allowed its user to listen in on all the calls going through the telephone network. SAS proved to be too great of a temptation for Mitnick, who desperately wanted to wield the power that the testing system could afford him.
Then of course other people started finding similar black boxes at other telecoms and data centers.
Ghosts in the wire (his book) mainly focuses on the FBI using the system for wiretaps. And if they can, I'm sure the NSA could just as easily.
- Even an office PBX has listen, whisper and barge. Why wouldn't a telco-grade switch have it?
- Thanks. SAS = Switched Access Services
- Same stuff different day. The United State's laws do not allow for direct domestic spying or something to that effect so they use Five Eyes anglosphere intelligence alliance marketplace as a loop hole. Since Reed Elsevier plc aka "RELX" has purchased LexisNexis who had purchased Seisint, Inc and the technology for Flordia's Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange Program "MATRIX", which was shut down due to privacy concerns by congress, it is only logical that the data aggregation technology is being used in full force now. There seems to be no other way but to allow 100% technology and communication introspection by the government to stop terrorism.
- So, this is an uncomfortable read and comes from my personal experience. I'm posting this here as I haven't yet found great outlets and support for what I experienced, and this thread seems like a good spot. Open to outreach and support and ideas from people.
In 2021-2022 I was vocal about the CIA being a terrorist organization (I bet many people adjacently believe similar things and are silent) and this got me attention from them. I posted several things I learned from documentaries and on the web, and from my personal background I think it was enough to trigger something in their system. From that time onwards, people I could best describe as Agents w/behavior that matches what professional interrogators would do kept showing up at public events I was a part of and in the most terrifying scenario also infiltrated my public commune.
There's an odd history with the FBI and possibly CIA and communes such as Osho the Bagawan (see, Netflix documentary) and I witnessed firsthand how deceptive, harmful and insidious this was. In some cases I believe substances were put in my food and drink, and in the cases matching that my body would later have adverse reactions with the agent's closely observing my behavior and consistently trying to elicit Black Web conversations. I had to flee and colocate to the familiarity of family and friends since, and only recently 3-years later have I been socializing my experience and writing to my congress and house representatives. That said, that was a month ago and they have yet to provide any substantive relief or support - I asked for assistance and guidance with investigating the intelligence community for misconduct as when they're doing this to Americans without any accountability, it undermines the integrity of our Country and I believe our national security. It brings into question who they are really serving. I'm no terrorist, even if I call you one and my skin color is brown and matches what the media-funded-by-the-CIA tells you to believe. I want this story documented and heard, believe what you will, though I leave you with the story that "We know our intelligence community does unethical things, its part of what we've given them the responsibility to do so we ourselves don't have to, and now when that unethical thing has happened to you or someone you know what do you do? What do you do when everyone you turn to for help gaslights you and tells you that surely did not happen? Find proof that the organization whose job it is to go undetected, did indeed do that thing to you." I ask for some empathy and understanding, please.
- Woah. First of all I hope you are aware there are multiple mental illnesses that can manifest with feelings of paranoia etc. like text book.
Secondly. I doubt any agency is going to hurt or drug you over that. Investigate you? Maybe. But its not worth the money.
Just keep in mind all the dangerous people who these groups investigated that they did nothing about that went on to do bad stuff. Although I'm sure these groups do take threats seriously, I don't think you are a threat.
I'm worried about your mental health is all. I'm not saying that in a way like "you sound suicidal" because you don't at all. You just sound paranoid. Wishing you the best brother
- Yep, my thoughts as well. And I say this as someone who not only has a chronic mental health disorder that sometimes manifests as paranoia, but someone who used to work in the IC for 10 years (it has been a while since then).
Is it possible? Sure. But it is very unlikely that much resources and effort would be devoted to someone that made a few critical comments.
- Yea I mean there are hundreds of thousands of ex punk rockers with "F [insert 3 letter agency here]" on their leather jackets and whatever. I don't think these types of people are that soft skinned they'd chase down everyone who said screw them.
I post on here all the time reminding people that tech companies are defense companies. Because I think it's important people remember what that implies.
No one is chasing me around or anything. At least I don't think so. I'm not saying put yourself in danger for your views. But I am saying, the world isn't as scary as anyone's brain can make it be.
These are tough times. Managing stress and mental health is hard.
Pretty cool of you to share your experiences bladegash. I always thought they wouldn't let people with mental health conditions into those environments. Shows what I know.
- > Pretty cool of you to share your experiences bladegash. I always thought they wouldn't let people with mental health conditions into those environments. Shows what I know.
Some mental health conditions, like mine, don’t really show up until later in life and it is at least part of the reason I no longer work in that field :).
However, things are well managed now and I have a good career in the private sector!
- I would caution outright categorizing this as paranoia stemming from a mental illness. The problem with delusional paranoia and justifiable paranoia is that clinically they can present the same.
> Just keep in mind all the dangerous people who these groups investigated that they did nothing about that went on to do bad stuff.
There are numerous people that America's intelligence agencies have intimidated, harassed and yes drugged for similar reasons.
OP, I hope you have been seen by a mental healthcare professional. They can help you determine the nature of these experiences. I hope you have extensively documented these experiences. Sharing that documentation with your family or others who you know to be sober in judgement is probably the only mechanism you have to distinguish if your experiences are based in reality.
- That's fair. I like the way you phrased this. It's a roadmap to staying and feeling safe but also possibly getting some help if it makes sense. Everyone needs a little help once in a while, and society right now is very isolating.
- Based on the stories of actual whistleblowers, what really happens is that they either get arrested or nothing happens. Unless OP has real firsthand knowledge of crimes and isn't just repeating information spread by other mentally ill people, I very much doubt something that was aired in a Netflix documentary is going to make the CIA follow him targeted-individual-style. If everything you are talking about can already be found online, you're not special. It's narcissistic.
There are plenty of laws on the books that can be used against people sharing classified information (whether or not they are effective is another question) so why would they need to follow you around and poison your food?
That's not to say that whistleblowers don't get followed, they certainly do but in an inconspicuous manner. Real intimidation comes in the form of two guys knocking on your door explicitly telling you to knock it off or else they'll arrest you, beat you, kill your dog, etc.
- [dead]
- 2nd post here. When I share posts matching particular phrases and labels, on HN, I've noticed them get downvoted as though by an algorithm. Would anyone be surprised if the agencies are themselves running bots, algorithms and accounts to affect visibility of discourse on threads like these?
- No, it's because you sound like a crazy person and what you talk about is not really constructive to threads about real things.
- That could be, but you should also be aware that many people will have the knee jerk reaction to reject statements like yours as being paranoid and delusional. Assuredly sometimes that is an appropriate response, but the drive to immediately reject narratives like yours is to protect ourselves from the doubt that validating your story would elicit. We do not want to believe those things are happening to those around us (even if we accept that they might be in general), and that is a fact that these organizations take advantage of. I wish you luck either way. Stay calm and suspend belief. We are human, and not only do we not know most things, the most important things we cannot know. You can build a composure that allows for many things to be true and not fully know which and still proceed. Otherwise you might be racked with doubt about who and how things appear and have trouble moving forward from this.
- Hi thank you, yes. This was my own explanation and reasoning that I eventually arrived to after seeing and experiencing what I did. I thank you for providing one of few non-gaslight responses, and being willing to engage me where I asked. (and treating me with dignity, thank you)
I'll sit with several of your bits of statement.
- When the internet psychiatry committee comes to diagnose you in a condescending way you just know they have your best interest at heart. There are plenty of people who are up to no good. You should expose and troll them but only briefly. Your duty as a citizen is to only briefly troll them, we should all do that. If you are overly persistent they will dedicate resources. Thankfully there are plenty of people up to no good and you can simply move on to (briefly!) upsetting the next topic. They currently seem to be actively failing at not curing cancer. There is also much fun to be had with devices that make large amounts of energy with little or no fuel. They don't have to be real, you only need the lab reports and journal articles that describe them as such. You can be sure to assemble your own ward full of internet psychiatrist craving to diagnose you with the same. Whats the term for it... uhhh... ah right medical pseudoscience.
- > as though by an algorithm
How can you tell the difference between an algorithm and topics genuinely being consistently unpopular, though?
> Would anyone be surprised if the agencies are themselves running bots, algorithms and accounts to affect visibility of discourse on threads like these?
On HN specifically? Yeah.
On actually popular platforms? No.
- I run a HN voting algorithm and opinion manipulation system across a few hundred accounts - only a few on any individual post. I use residential proxies to prevent correlation. The account I'm using right now to confess this to you is one that's already been burned.
Downvoting this comment is funny, because it's a burned account anyway, so not hurting me, and you want less people to know this fact about HN?
- Do you represent an agency?
- Try it, it's really not that hard. I feel bad saying this and I don't do anything like this anymore but I did make a few accounts behind residential IPs that posted HN popular sentiments on topics that were actually factually incorrect and got a lot of upvotes pretty quickly. I stopped because I felt icky with how corrosive the whole thing could end up being. This was a while ago so not sure if new user sign up has become more difficult.
It turns out that open web forums are mostly emotional places and often the most inflammatory or in group opinions rise to the top. With that knowledge, manipulation isn't that tough.
- Your experience makes sense to me, and it feels like just the sort of hacker-ethos tinkering that brings a smile to a lot of faces around here, mine included. Complete with the thrill of discovering that kind of power, then the “ick” factor catching up with you, and you deciding to stop.
Reminds me of rougher-and-readier days, when everything about online discourse felt more self-evidently… what’s the word… contingent? Provisional? Local? Playful, game-like, made-up? Afforded the seriousness of pub banter, rather than any kind of indicator of some broader Truth.
I think my point—which I apologize for putting a little snidely—echoed @rkomorn’s: I completely accept that you or “agencies” can manipulate HN’s proudly old-school mechanics. I just feel like our hangout here is less important in the scheme of things than we’d like to imagine it to be. At least to the sort of agencies who do that kind of work. They could, but why?
- Oh yes I agree. I doubt the big agencies are doing much here just because I don't think this forum is that "useful", it's not really an input into any big state or corporate actor's decision making that's worth paying attention to. I just think it's fairly easy to game this forum and I suspect it is absolutely being gamed by interest groups of individuals who want certain opinions to be more prominent.
I've been on Discords that have told their users to go and brigade HN threads to express their opinions. But these have been petty things like politics and programming language flamewars (two examples I've witnessed.)
- How do you think the agencies and corporate suits got everyone to prefer MIT over GPL? It was all astroturfed.
- Not sure what your point is?
- If the documents are classified. And you dont know the levels of it.
I would never hand them over. As i dont know who is cleared. And wait for the court to decide what should i do with them. Or meet the president and hand them personally. By the good semeriton, should protect the lawyes, as they did their best to hold the secret.
I am no lawyer .
- Isn't AI both the problem ... AND the solution here?
True, you can't publish a book anonymously anymore: that ship seems to have sailed. But if you want to publish a political piece or anything else potentially "substantive", can't you just ask AI to rewrite it for you? Instant anonymization!
- What about the chat conversation from you asking it to write it?
- AI doesn't seem like it'd be much help at all.
Unless the AI is 100% offline and locally hosted there's a record there. Also generating text isn't really the hard part of being anonymous. You also have publish it somewhere, and somewhere it will be seen, and that also means a trail back to you.
Most of the time the information you have to share, especially anything verifiable, will be traceable back to you. That's the problem with knowing something very few people have the access to know. Anyone who does know will be one of a very small number of people.
If what you're telling the public isn't at least somewhat verifiable you're just another anonymous/random person spewing unconfirmable conspiracies and you should expect to be treated that way. No respectable publisher is going to print crazy unsourced manuscripts filled with unverifiable claims. The internet is already filled with people doing that who rightly get ignored making that a very crowded space. The ability for AI to push out massive amounts of unconfirmable conspiracies at rates that were previously difficult to achieve is only going to make the problem worse.
- I maintain top secrecy by following a modified Osama playbook. Compose in air gap, pass flash drive to courier, but have the cousins skip the vaccination program.
621 points by the-mitr 19 hours ago | 208 comments